Sermon for April 6th

I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me. What does this mean? We are to fear, love and trust God above anything else. Do you break this commandment? Yes, indeed. Every time that you do not fear God and respect his power in your life. Every time that you do not love God with your whole heart. Every time that you do not trust him to provide for you. And by breaking this commandment we break them all. God doesn’t tally up our sins and good deeds and see which column is longer. One sin and we are done for. For whatever does not come from faith is sin, the scriptures tell us. And so, we are all counted among the unbelievers.

We are all unbelievers then. We are the ungodly. We are God’s enemies. But here is the good news. That isn’t the last word for you. Why isn’t it the last word? God demands that you hear more. I made a promise at my ordination. I made it again in the contract that I signed to be your pastor. I promise that I will not only preach God’s law and his commandments to you, but also his gospel. Therefore, this church is a place where you can come and hear not only that you have sinned and fallen very short of the glory of God, but you can also hear that God has chosen you on the basis of what he has done. Jesus Christ died for the ungodly, for you. While we were God’s enemies, Christ died for us. While we were crucifying Jesus, he was forgiving us.

What is the church and why do you come here? Why would you invite anyone else to come here? Is it to grow the church so that it pops out the windows and we have to build another one? Is it to pay for our bills? Is it to justify our existence to get together as a club? To see friends and feel that we are a part of something? This church was built for unbelievers, like you and me. This church was built so that you might come learn God’s laws and hear his promises. Not just the bad news that you hear all week long in the newspaper or on the radio or on the evening news. This is the place where you can hear an unconditional promise from God for you. A promise that is not based on what you do, but on what God has done.

According to our Lutheran Confessions, the church is the place where the gospel is taught in its truth and purity and where the sacraments are administered rightly. The church shows up on the road to Emmaus with two of Jesus’ followers who were unbelievers once again. They wanted to fear, love and trust God above anything else. They “had hoped” that Jesus was their Messiah. But now, they had seen him die and they were unbelievers once again. But, whenever you smell a sinner walking around, you can expect God to start building a church for them. So Jesus comes and starts preaching, to give them faith and hope once again.

But not everyone comes to church, right? What kind of people don’t go to church? Regular people. Unbelievers, just like you and me. Your friends and family. Your coworkers. Your acquaintances. The only difference between you and them is this: you know where you can go to get your belief while they might still be walking on the road. You know a place to strengthen your faith. When you are starving for hope, you can feast on God’s Word. As a pastor, many people like to tell me how often they go to church. In fact, if it doesn’t come up, I can probably guess that they don’t go to church much at all. But what kind of virtue is it? Going to church I mean.

You might be impressed the first time your three or four year old doesn’t ask you for a snack, but just goes to the refrigerator and gets it themselves; but when your kids come home from college, you don’t pat them on the back when they pour themselves a bowl of cereal. Do you really expect extra credit from God just because you know where to eat? When your soul can be fed? Church attendance isn’t something to necessarily be proud of, but it is something very important to learn.

What kind of people don’t come to church? Regular people. Unbelievers like you and me. Your friends and family. Unfortunately, most people in the world do not know where the spiritual refrigerators are, or don’t realize there is food in them, or can’t get to the food to eat. The church seems to complicated, or too demanding, or too exclusive or boring or something like this. So they starve. Or maybe they have never heard that Jesus Christ can feed their hungry bodies and souls.

If your aging mother came up to you and told you she was really hungry, but didn’t know where there was any food, what would you do? You’d tell her where the food was, you’d bring her to the food, or you would bring the food to her. Well, if your mother tells you she is depressed and feels like something is missing in her life what might you do? Point her to the closest church, pray with her, or call a pastor to share God’s Word with her so that she doesn’t have to go hungry anymore.

What kind of people don’t come to church? Regular sinners like you and me. Hungry people. Some people don’t come to church because they believe they can live without it. This includes most of us as well, when it comes right down to it. But anorexia of the spirit is very dangerous. We want to look good in the eyes of the world all on our own. We don’t want the crutch of religion, or belief or faith to fatten us up and make us anything less than perfect in ourselves. So we keep cutting weight, cutting our relationship to God and to family more and more so we can be more and more self-reliant. Until finally, finally. When we feel we have become perfect in the eyes of the world, we are so skinny we are unrecognizable. Sometimes people get used to the hunger and start believing that faith itself is a bad thing, a temptation, a crutch. When you are fed with God’s Word, it can show you how close to death you were.

Not going to church is socially acceptable. The more self-reliant you are the better, right? But the church is not a place where perfect attendance is counted, it is a place where God attends to your needs. He feeds you with himself, his very own body and blood. He gives you all he has until you are fat and happy and trusting in him alone to satisfy your hungry heart.

What kinds of people don’t come to church? Unbeleivers like you and me. Your friends and family. Your coworkers. Your acquaintances. Some people just don’t come to church anymore. Maybe they grew up in the church. They believe in God, and they know that believing is good and necessary, but they have found something much sweeter to chew on. Perhaps it is all about finding God is nature, or on the ski slopes, or at Saint Mattress by the Springs, as my college pastor would say. God is a God of love . . . only. God is a God of tolerance . . . above all else. God just wants everyone to be happy and get along. Do the right thing, be a good person and you are halfway up your own personal stairway to heaven.

Now, you can probably live a long time on chocolate bunnies, or ramen noodles, or pizza. Hey, at least you are eating, right? Or as I hear it, at least I believe in something! The question is, what would you do if your spouse skipped mealtime and only ate pie for dessert. Day in and day out. It works fine when things are going great, but when times get tough, your body needs more nourishment than what a sugar coated pastry can give you. When life hands you cancer, or diabetes, or arthritis, or depression, you need to hear from a God who has suffered on a cross with you, not just a God who hands out candy.

How do you know when someone is hungry? Sometimes they come right out and say so. They tell you they are getting a headache, or their tummy hurts or they haven’t eaten in awhile. So you tell them about your favorite restaurant or invite them over for lunch. The same is true for people who are hungry spiritually. Sometimes, they come right out and say it. But often they tell you about their depression. Or they tell you about their suffering. Or they tell you about their loneliness. Or they share their opinions about religion. Telling them about church isn’t going to get you any brownie points, but it might help them out and give them hope.

You wouldn’t go up to a complete stranger and ask them if they were hungry, neither would you ask them if they went to church. That would be both silly and difficult. God puts you in the right place at the right time. It’s not your job to argue anyone into belief. Show them a place to eat. God will do the feeding.

The church is wherever sinners gather to hear words of forgiveness from God himself. We all need to hear the words of Jesus Christ. Even when we are blind to his presence, like the men walking in the story today, even when we are unbelievers, and ungodly and sinners, God promises to feed us and give us faith to believe in him again and again.

I believe that all of you who come to church are hungry and maybe even starving. That’s why I am called to declare God’s forgiveness to you and to anyone and everyone you invite through these doors. Children, young and old, Adults, young and old. This is what it means to be a sinner. To be starving, but believing you are full. To be dead, but believing you are alive. To be blinded by darkness, but believing you can see. So, behold, Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus promises to take away your sin and promises to be all in all for you, your light, your life, your salvation and your heavenly food.